710.1 


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THE  FAR.Vl  CITIES  CORP. 
OF  AMERICA...  CHARTER 


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Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2017  with  funding  from 

University  of  Illinois  Urbana-Champaign  Alternates 


https://archive.org/details/farmcitiescorporOOfarm 


UN"  V Ct 

DIVISION  OF 


ILLINOIS 


FROM  THE  CHARTER  OF 
THE  FARM  CITIES  CORPORATION  OF  AMERICA 

“To  establish  a ‘Farm  City,’’  typical  of  others,  where  families 
can  cultivate  the  land  profitably,  and,  at  the  same  time,  can  enjoy  the 
social,  intellectual  and  economic  advantages  of  community  life,  and 
to  establish  other  communities  rural,  urban  or  suburban,  and  to 
develop,  foster  and  control  same  in  such  manner  as  opportunity, 
wisdom  and  patriotism  may  suggest.” 


Xiibtar.p’ 


THE  FARM  CITIES  CORPORATION 

OF  AMERICA 

Organized  Under  the  Laws  of  the  State  of  Delaware 

AUTHORIZED  CAPITAL:  500  SHARES -$50,000 


EXPERTS 

DR.  F.  H.  NEWELL,  Civil  Engineer,  Formerly  Chief  U.  S.  Reclamation  Service 
JOHN  NOLEN,  City  and  Rural  Planner 

THOMAS  ADAMS,  Town  Planning  Advisor,  Dominion  of  Canada 
HUGH  MacRAE,  Founder  of  MacRae  Agricultural  Communities 
DR.  J.  A.  BONSTEEL,  Soil  Expert 

ADVISORY  COUNCIL 


MRS.  F.  L.  ACKERMAN,  1 West  6ith  Street, 
New  York 

MARY  AUSTIN,  National  Arts  Club,  New  York 

RAY  STANNARD  BAKER,  Cosmos  Club, 
Washington,  D.  C. 

CHAS.  S.  BIRD,  Jr.,  East  Walpole,  Mass. 

C.  J.  BLANCHARD,  U.  S.  Reclamation  Service, 
Washington,  D.  C. 

DR.  E.  C.  BRANSON,  Rural  Social  Science, 

Chapel  Hill,  N.  C. 

PRES.  KENYON  L.  BUTTERFIELD,  Amer. 
Country  Life  Assn.,  Amherst,  Mass. 

H.  M.  CHASE,  Danville,  Va. 

MRS.  OLIVE  D.  CAMPBELL,  Russell  Sage  Foun- 
dation, New  York 

DAVID  R.  COKER,  Hartsville,  S.  C. 

H.  T.  CORY,  Berkley,  Cal. 

EUGENE  DAVENPORT,  Former  Dean  and  Direc- 
tor, 111.  College  of  Agric.,  Urbana,  111. 

G.  HOWARD  DAVISON,  American  International 
Pubs.,  New  York 

CHAS.  DEARING,  State  Demonstration  Farm, 
Willard,  N.  C. 

J.  R.  EDDY,  Paradise,  Lancaster  Co.,  Pa. 

MRS.  HENRY  J.  FAISON,  Faison,  N.  C. 

MRS.  HERBERT  J.  BROWNE,  Balia  Farm, 

West  Chester,  Pa. 

GEORGE  BIRD  GRINNELL,  238  E.  loth  Street, 
New  York 

MATTHEW  HAI.E,  Washington,  D.  C. 

ELLWOOD  HENDRICK.  Consulting  Editor, 
Chera.  and  Met.  Eng.,  New  York 

ELON  HUNTINGTON  HOOKER,  25  Pine  Street, 
New  York 

HERBERT  S.  HOUSTON,  New  York 

MAJ.  A.  L.  JAMES,  2324  19th  Street,  N.  W., 
Washington,  D.  C. 


WALTER  A.  JOHNSON,  American  International 
Pubs.,  New  York 

MISS  FRANCIS  KELLOR,  New  York 

DR.  B.  W.  KILGORE,  Dept,  of  Agriculture, 
Raleigh,  N.  C. 

GERALD  STANLEY  LEE,  Northampton,  Mas.s. 

E.  C.  LINDEMAN,  Greensboro,  N.  C. 

DR.  ARTHUR  D.  LITTLE,  Cambridge,  Mass. 

REV.  DUGALD  MACFADYEN,  Letchworth,  Herts, 
England 

W.  A.  McGIRT,  Wilmington,  N.  C. 

MRS.  JANE  McKIMMON,  Raleigh,  N.  C. 

ELWOOD  MEAD,  Oakland,  Cal. 

FRANK  MEAD,  OJai,  Ventura  County,  California 

E.  L.  MORGAN,  Am.  Red.  Cross,  Washington,  D.  C. 

F.  H.  NEWELL,  Washington,  D.  C. 

JOHN  NOLEN,  Harvard  Sq.,  Cambridge,  Mass. 

RAYxMOND  H.  OVESON,  Boston,  Mass. 

L.  H.  PARKER,  Ed.  World  Agriculture, 

Amherst,  Mass. 

HON.  JOHN  BARTON  PAYNE,  Washington,  D.  C. 

HON.  GIFFORD  PINCHOT,  Milford,  Pa. 

CLARENCE  POE,  Editor  Progressive  Farmer, 
Raleigh,  N.  C. 

GEO.  E.  ROBERTS,  V.P.,  National  City  Bank  of 
New  York 

LAWSON  SANDFORD,  Yonkers,  N.  Y. 

DR.  ALBERT  SHAW,  The  Review  of  Reviews, 
New  York 

MRS.  S.\RAH  MacD.  SHERIDAN,  907  Fifth  Ave., 
New  York 

RAYMOND  UNMHN,  Hampstead,  I.ondon,  England 

CARL  VROOMAN,  Bloomington,  111. 

CHAS.  1 1.  WHITAKER,  Editor,  Journal  of  the 
Amcr.  Institute  of  Architects 

WM.  L,  WHITE,  San  Francisco,  Cal. 


OFFICES 


244  MADISON  AVENUE 


NEW  YORK  CITY 


FOREWORD 


It  has  long  been  recognized  that  if  our  civilization  is  to  he 
preserved  and  developed  rural  life  must  he  made  more  attractive. 
The  problem  has  engaged  the  attention  of  thinking  men  and  women  for 
many  years,  and  various  attempts  to  find  a satisfactory  solution  have 
been  made.  Commissions  have  made  exhaustive  investigations, 
reports  and  recommendations,  yet  few  PRACTICAL  MEASURES 
for  the  correction  of  the  situation  have  been  undertaken.  The 
flow  of  population  from  rural  communities  to  the  cities  has  remained 
unchecked,  and  has  reached  such  proportions  as  to  constitute  a 
very  real  menace  to  our  national  welfare. 


THE  FARM  CITIES  CORPORATION  OF  AMERICA 

The  plan  designed  by  John  Nolen,  City  and  Rural  Planner,  and  Philip  W. 
Foster,  Associate,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  shown  on  the  following  page,  indicates  the 
proposed  development  of  a 10,000  acre  tract. 

This  plan  shows  the  possibilities  of  treatment  of  the  tract  in  North 
Carolina  covered  in  the  report  of  Thomas  Adams,  elsewhere  referred  to,  and 
under  consideration  as  the  site  for  the  first  Farm  City.  The  corporation,  how- 
ever, is  not  committed  to  this  or  any  other  particular  property. 

The  purpose  of  the  Farm  City  is  to  provide,  in  a healthful  location  and 
in  an  agreeable  environment,  means  whereby  owners  of  small  farms  may,  by 
the  practice  of  scientifically  directed,  intensified  and  diversified  agriculture, 
supply  themselves  with  a good  living  and  profitable  occupation.  The  introduc- 
tion of  the  community  center  and  the  industrial  section  will  bring  into  the  farm 
life  the  social  and  economic  advantages  that  are  usually  associated  only  with 
life  in  the  larger  cities.  This  plan  carried  to  success  will  be  the  incentive  for 
similar  communities  located  throughout  the  United  States, 


PURPOSE  OF  ORGANIZATION 

The  purpose  of  the  Farm  Cities  Corjioration  is  to  help  safeguard  the 
national  welfare  of  the  United  States  by  making  actual  working-demonstrations 
of  attractive  and  remunerative  country  life.  It  is  believed  that  this  purpose  can 
be  accomplished  by  the  establishment,  under  certain  conditions,  of  communities 
which  shall  be  essentially  agricultural  in  nature,  but  which  shall  also  contain 
certain  industries  supplemental  to  agricultural  activities.  These  communities  are 
referred  to  as  “Farm  Cities.” 


PRINCIPLES  TO  GOVERN  ESTABLISHMENT 

The  following  principles  will  govern  the  establishment  of  “Farm  Cities”  by 
this  organization: 

(a)  The  choice  of  a healthful  location  suitable  for  the  development  of 
a system  of  intensified  and  diversified  agriculture  which  will  enable 
owners  of  small  farms  while  raising  their  own  food  supplies  to  con- 
duct profitable  farming  operations  in  an  agreeable  environment . 

(b)  The  establishment  of  industries  supplemental  to  agriculture  to  such 
an  extent  and  under  such  conditions  as  to  provide  for  a well-bal- 
anced and  economic  life  without  rendering  the  “Farm  City"  less 
attractive  or  less  healthful  for  the  inhabitants. 

(c)  The  development  and  scientific  management  of  the  “Farm  City"  in 
such  a manner  as  to  insure  the  economic  success  of  the  inhabitants, 
and  at  the  same  time  to  provide  the  fullest  opportunities  for  intel- 
lectual development  and  social  intercourse. 

(d)  The  provision  of  ample  capital  for  carrying  out  the  project.  The 
weakening  element  of  philanthropy  will  be  eliminated  by  providing 
for  a fair  return  on  the  developing  capital.  At  the  same  time,  the 
interests  of  the  community  will  be  protected  by  providing  that  all 
revenue  of  the  developing  corporation  above  fixed  percentage  on 
invested  capital  shall  be  devoted  to  the  welfare  of  the  community . 

(e)  The  ultimate  transfer  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  “Farm  City"  for  a 
fair  consideration,  of  all  rights  held  by  the  developing  corporation. 

This  transfer  will  not  be  made  until  the  success  of  the  “Farm  City" 
becomes  assured,  and  it  becomes  evident  that  its  further  develop- 
ment can  be  safely  entrusted  to  the  community. 

(/)  After  the  success  of  the  first  “Farm  City"  is  assured,  it  is  the  in- 
tention of  the  corporation  to  give  nation-wide  scope  to  its  plans  by 
the  establishment  of  similar  “Farm  Cities"  throughout  the  country. 

With  this  in  view,  the  corporation  purposes  to  choose  a truly  repre- 
sentative group  of  directors  and  advisors  and  to  secure  the  ser- 
vices of  the  best  experts  available. 

FORM  OF  ORGANIZATION 

A “pioneer  company”  with  an  authorized  capital  of  $50,000  has  been  in- 
corporated. The  name  of  this  company  is  “The  Farm  Cities  Corporation  of 
America.”  The  ultimate  object  of  this  “pioneer  company”  is  the  organization  of 
a larger  company  for  the  actual  establishment  and  development  of  the  first  “Farm 
City.”  This  larger  company  will  be  referred  to  as  the  “ultimate  company.” 

[ s ] 


THE 

FARM  CITIES 
CORPORATION 
OF  AMERICA 


PIONEER 
COMPANY 
TO  BE 
TAKEN 
OVER 
BY  AN 
ULTIMATE 
COMPANY 


The  “pioneer  company”  will  expend  such  amounts  as  may  be  necessary 
for  making  preliminary  soil  and  topographic  surveys,  securing  options  on  'a 
tract,  to  be  selected  by  the  directors,  of  about  10,000  acres  of  fertile  land  suit- 
able for  the  development,  and  for  such  other  necessary  and  legitimate  expenses  as 
may  be  incident  to  the  organization  of  the  “ultimate  company.” 

The  capital  stock  of  the  “pioneer  company”  is  divided  into  shares  of  $100 
each  and  will  be  fully  paid  and  non-asscssable.  Upon  the  organization  of  the 
“ultimate  company,”  it  will  take  over  the  “pioneer  company,”  and  the  stock  of  the 
“pioneer  company”  will  be  exchanged  for  an  equal  amount  of  the  stock  of  the 
“ultimate  company.”  The  capital  stock  of  the  “ultimate  company”  will  be  ap- 
proximately $1,000,000,  or  such  amount  as  the  directors  of  the  “pioneer  company” 
may  consider  necessary  for  carrying  out  the  purposes  of  the  organization. 

Dividends,  cumulative  from  time  of  payment  of  subscriptions  to  stock,  will 
be  limited  to  seven  per  cent. 


PLANS. 

After  the  organization  of  the  “ultimate  company”  is  complete,  the  follow- 
ing steps  are  proposed,  subject  to  the  action  of  the  directors: 

(а)  COMPLETION  OF  PURCHASE  of  the  land. 

(б)  IMPROVEMENT  of  the  tract  by  doing  necessary  clearing,  drain- 
ing, road-building,  etc.,  in  order  to  put  it  into  good  condition  for 

(c)  SUBDIVISION  into  small  farms  for  sale  to  carefully  selected  indi- 
viduals who  will  live  on  the  land  and  cultivate  it. 

(d)  CREATION  OF  TRAINING  FARM  and  center  of  agricultuural 
co-operation  in  conjunction  with  Federal  and  State  agencies,  whose 
support  of  the  project  is  assured. 

{e)  DEVELOPMENT  OF  A TOWN  CENTER,  with  the  establishment 
of  essential  industries  and  the  provision  of  educational  and  social 
facilities. 

(f)  SALE  OF  FARMS  AND  TOWN  LOTS  binder  such  restrictions 
as  will  enable  the  Farm  Cities  Corporation  to  control  the  develop- 
ment of  the  community  in  such  a way  as  to  safeguard  its  best  in- 
terests. 

(g)  MANAGEMENT  OF  THE  '‘FARM  CITY"  for  such  a length  of 
time  as  to  assure  its  success. 


“The  development  of  the  best  country  life  in  the  United  States 
is  . . . largely  a question  of  guidance.” — From  report  of  the 

Country  Life  Commission  to  President  Roosevelt,  January  23,  1909. 


VIEWS  UPON  THE  FARM  CITY  PROJECT 


At  a large  dinner  given  at  the  Biltmore  Hotel  in  Nera  York 
City,  February  3,  1922,  the  purposes  of  the  Farm  Cities  Corpora- 
tion of  America  were  fully  discussed  by  authorities  best  qualified  by 
experience  to  give  those  present  a clear  view  of  th€  problems  in- 
volved and  of  the  practical  steps  to  be  taken  toward  solution. 

No  public  report  of  the  proceedings  was  made  and,  for  the 
first  time,  the  essentials  of  the  views  there  expressed  are  here  dis- 
closed. 


THE 

FARM  CITIES 
CORPORATION 
OF  AMERICA 


MR.  GEORGE  E,  ROBERTS,  Vice-President  of  the  National  City  Bank 
of  New  York,  who  presided,  briefly  reviewed  the  changes  during  the  past  century 
which  have  resulted  in  the  disappearance  of  cheap,  easily  obtained  and  cultivated 
lands  in  the  United  States. 

“Now,”  said  Mr.  Roberts,  “the  twentieth  century  has  come 
and  the  social  problems  of  which  Macaulay  gave  warning  are  face 
to  face  with  us.  Of  course,  there  is  great  opportunity  in  this  country 
3'et  for  increasing  the  production  of  food,  there  are  millions  of  acres 
yet  to  be  brought  under  cultivation,  but  the  cheap,  easily  accessible, 
readily  cultivated  lands  are  gone.  The  lands  that  remain  require  a 
considerable  expenditure  of  labor,  of  capital,  to  bring  them  under 
cultivation.  They  are  not  so  easily  occupied,  and  the  question  of 
bringing  them  under  cultivation,  of  getting  people  upon  them  and 
of  locating  them  under  such  conditions  that  they  will  be  prosperous 
and  contented  and  living  in  a wholesome  state  of  society  is  a pressing 
one.  To  my  mind  it  is  one  of  the  great  problems  of  the  time  to  get 
these  remaining  lands  into  use  and  producing  the  foodstuffs  that  our 
population  will  need.  It  is  one  of  the  vital  questions  in  which  the 
prosperity  of  this  country  is  involved.” 

DR.  ALBERT  SHAW,  Editor  of  the  Review  of  Reviews,  said  in  part: 

“If  we  do  not  by  definite  intention  proceed  to  develop  the 
country  as  we  are  now  developing  and  improving  our  towns,  then 
our  civilization  is  going  to  decline,  because  our  conditions  in  the 
country  are  growing  relatively  worse,  while  our  conditions  in  the 
cities  are  becoming  standardized. 

“An  individual  cannot  go  out  from  the  city  now  and  take  up 
land  and  proceed  to  farm,  as  the  pioneers  did.  We  have  now  to 
proceed  in  the  country  as  we  did  in  the  city,  by  finding  associational 
ways  of  producing  community  life.  You  have  to  reconstruct  the 
country  by  providing  for  the  rural  communities  those  same  satis- 
factions of  life  that  are  freely  available  for  people  in  towns. 

“The  country  has  to  be  made  over  by  the  employment  of 
capital,  and  the  use  of  well-considered  plans.  Communities  must  be 
laid  out;  people  must  be  helped  to  settle  on  the  land.  Their  agri- 
cultural operations  must  be  associated.  Markets  must  be  found. 

There  will  be  co-operation,  but  there  will  still  be  individual  owner- 
ship. There  will  remain  personal  and  private  and  family  initiative; 

[ 7 1 


but  in  the  country,  as  now  in  the  towns,  there  will  be  collectivism  of 
a practical  and  sensible  kind.  There  will  be  central  schools,  all  kinds 
of  agencies  for  pleasure  and  instruction,  as  there  will  be  for  a reliable 
and  safe  economic  life.” 

DR.  F.  H.  NEWELL,  Consulting  Engineer,  U.  S.  Reclamation  Service 
Washington,  who  organized  the  U.  S.  Reclamation  Service,  its  first  engineer 
leading  authority  upon  land  development  and  colonization  said : 

“More  and  more  of  our  people  are  being  forced  from  the 
country  into  the  city  and  with  corresponding  threat  to  the  stability 
of  our  institutions.  This  condition  has  long  been  recognized,  but 
the  duty  and  opportunity  for  remedying  the  ill  effects  have  not  been 
fully  appreciated.  Here,  however,  in  this  group  of  far-seeing  citizens 
there  is  a tangible  evidence  that  conviction  is  leading  to  action,  and 
that  it  is  possible  as  well  as  desirable  to  begin  to  rectify  some  of 
the  bad  conditions  of  which  we  are  only  too  well  aware. 

“President  Harding  in  his  address  to  Congress  on  December 
6,  1921,  states: 

'The  base  of  the  'pyramid  of  civilization  xvhich  rests  upon  the 
soil  is  shrinking  through  the  drift  of  population  from  farm  to 
city.  For  a generation  we  have  expressed  more  or  less  concern 
about  this  tendency.  Economists  have  warned  and  statesmen  have 
deplored.  We  thought  for  a time  that  modern  conveniences  and 
the  more  intimate  contact  would  halt  the  movement  but  it  has  gone 
steadily  on.  Perhaps  only  grim  necessity  will  correct  it  but  we 
ought  to  find  a less  drastic  remedy.' 

“It  is  up  to  us  here  and  now,  without  waiting  for  ‘grim  neces- 
sity’, to  begin  to  plan  and  show  by  practical  demonstration  that  this 
drift  of  population  can  be  stayed,  in  part  at  least.  While  it  is  im- 
portant that  a national  policy  be  adopted,  such  as  will  bring  into 
play  all  of  the  forces.  National,  State,  and  corporate,  which  acting 
together  will  produce  the  largest  result,  yet  it  is  not  necessary  or 
desirable  for  this  or  any  other  group  of  thinking  citizens  to  delay 
for  the  more  ponderous  movement  of  great  political  bodies. 

“We  can  advance  the  cause  and  show  results  which  will  have 
value  not  merely  in  any  one  locality,  but  which  will  stimulate  useful 
activity  all  over  the  country  and  will  serve  as  a demonstration  or 
model  for  larger  and  larger  undertakings. 

“It  is  not  necessary  to  dwell  upon  the  fact  full  of  danger  that 
the  number  of  self-supporting  small  farm  homes  is  diminishing  rela- 
tive to  the  increase  of  population,  nor  is  it  essential  to  emphasize 
the  fact  that  such  homes  form  the  backbone  of  our  civilization.  From 
them  have  come  the  men  who  have  been  leaders  not  only  in  the  Na- 
tional and  State  affairs,  but  also  in  industry  and  in  the  Government’s 
defense. 

“All  are  aware  that  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States, 
and  the  institutions  which  have  grown  up  around  it,  presuppose  that 
a considerable  part  of  the  voters  are  home-owning  taxpayers.  We 
may  also  question  whether  these  free  institutions  can  continue  when 
the  great  majority  of  voters  are  no  longer  owners  of  a home,  but 
are  nomadic  wage  earners  living  in  apartments  and  getting  a living 


FARM  CITY 

DESIGNED 

AS 

EXAMPLE 

FOR 

WHOLE 

COUNTRY 

TO 

FOLLOW 


from  more  or  less  occasional  employment  by  great  corporations. 
Why  should  these  people  worry  as  regards  the  taxes  or  expenditures  ? 

The  landlord  or  the  employer  pays  the  bill ! The  ordinary  voter  is 
not  directly  concerned  as  to  the  effect  of  any  new  scheme  of  taxation 
or  of  expenditure. 

“Such  a man,  however,  if  allowed  to  remain  in  the  country, 
by  being  given  an  opportunity  to  acquire  a small  piece  of  land  on 
which  he  can  make  a living,  becomes,  as  has  been  said,  the  greatest 
stabilizing  influence  and  the  man  upon  whom  our  institutions  rest. 
Edward  Everett  Hale  has  best  expressed  this  in  his  question  ‘Whoever 
heard  of  a man  shouldering  his  musket  to  fight  for  his  boarding- 
house. 

“The  time,  long  ago  pointed  out  by  Macaulay,  has  now  ar- 
rived when  ‘The  boundless  extent  of  fertile  and  unoccupied  land’  has 
been  taken  up.  Now  our  institutions,  as  he  predicted,  are  being 
brought  to  the  test.  ‘Distress  everywhere  makes  the  laborer  mutinous 
and  discontented,  and  inclines  him  to  listen  with  eagerness  to 
agitators.’ 

“The  movement  proposed,  namely,  of  bringing  about  condi- 
tions such  that  the  country-minded  man  and  his  wife  can  remain  in 
the  country  and  secure  a foothold  on  the  soil,  is  not  necessarily  a 
purely  philanthropic  nor  altruistic  undertaking.  It  can  and  should 
be  joined  to  a properly  balanced  profit-making  system.  Philanthropy 
alone  cannot  permanently  succeed  in  such  an  undertaking.  For 
continued  success  there  must  be  a proper  sharing  of  benefits  by  all 
concerned,  and  while  the  homeseeker  secures  an  opportunity  to  obtain 
a self-supporting  farm  home,  at  the  same  time  the  man  or  organiza- 
tion who  makes  this  possible  can  and  should  receive  an  adequate 
reward  for  the  efforts  and  expenditures  which  have  brought  about 
this  happy  result.  There  is  no  reason  why  one  group  of  persons 
should  benefit  at  the  expense  of  the  other.  Stability  and  continuity 
of  this  work  is  insured  only  by  a fair  division  of  profits. 

“This  undertalcing — to  make  available  the  idle  or  waste  lands 
which  have  a fertile  soil — is  by  no  means  an  experiment.  Innumer- 
able efforts  have  been  made  in  every  part  of  the  United  States,  and 
helpful  examples  of  what  to  do  and  what  to  avoid  are  afforded  in 
every  direction.  The  new  feature,  if  it  can  be  so  called,  is  the  fact 
that  the  present  enterprise  starts  out  with  the  intention  of  making 
use  of  this  experience  and  in  combining  it  in  a safer  form  in  such 
way  as  to  bring  about  a higher  degree  of  assurance  of  success, 
and,  particularly,  of  equity  in  the  distribution  of  the  benefits. 

“As  a rule,  most  of  the  efforts  at  reclamation  and  settlement 
of  land  fall  into  either  one  of  two  groups.  On  the  one  hand,  have 
been  those  which  are  purely  philanthropic  and  which  have  been  suc- 
cessful to  a certain  degree,  but  have  not  been  continued  because  the 
investments  have  not  been  returned,  and  there  was  no  more  money 
to  be  had. 

“On  the  other  hand,  is  a great  group  of  purely  speculative 
enterprises  where  lands  have  been  reclaimed  and  sold  under  such  con- 
ditions that  the  purchasers  have  felt  that  they  have  been  robbed.  As 
a consequence,  new  settlers,  men  who  are  eagerly  seeking  a home, 
are  suspicious,  and  most  of  the  enterprises  intended  to  be  purely 

[ 9 ] 


THE 

FARM  CITIES 
CORPORATION 
OF  AMERICA 


PllOBLKM 
OF  ESTAB- 
LISHING 
HOMES  ON 
THE  LAND 
IS  OF 
NATIONAL 
IMPORT- 
ANCE 


money-making  in  charactei*  have  failed  because  of  the  slowness  with 
which  the  settlers  have  been  willing  to  take  the  risk  of  buying  the 
land,  lletween  these  extremes  it  is  possible  to  steer  a safe  course  if 
the  dangers  on  each  side  are  carefully  ascertained  and  plotted  on  our 
map. 

“Dr.  Albert  Shaw  has  well  stated  the  problem  before  us — that 
of  making  history  by  intention  or  perhaps  of  making  geography  by 
intention.  Our  intention  is  to  study  the  condition  of  success  and 
failure,  keeping  our  eye  on  the  goal  to  be  reached  and  avoiding  the 
rocks  upon  which  have  been  shipwrecked  so  many  undertakings. 

“The  results  to  be  attained,  not  only  in  the  specific  problem 
in  hand,  but  in  laying  out  the  course  which  may  be  followed  safely 
by  others,  is  of  such  national  importance  that  we  can  well  afford  to 
devote  the  best  efforts  of  our  lives  to  these  undei’takings  in  the  full 
belief  that  there  will  be  no  achievement  of  the  present  century  which 
will  do  more  to  enable  peoples  and  communities  to  live  in  peace  and 
prosperity  than  the  establishment  and  maintenance  of  homes  on  the 
land.” 

A PRELIMINARY  PLAN  FOR  A TYPICAL  FARM  CITY 

Mr.  John  Nolen  of  Cambridge,  Mass.,  authority  and  expert 
in  town  and  city  planning,  has  already  begun  a careful  study  of 
the  planning  problems  of  The  Farm  Cities  Corporation.  He  and  his 
associate,  Mr.  Philip  W.  Foster,  have  worked  out  a preliminary 
plan  for  a typical  Farm  City  as  it  would  be  actually  developed  if 
located  on  property  that  has  been  under  consideration.  This  plan 
is  reproduced  on  page  4 of  this  pamphlet. 

“What  should  the  motive  be,  the  real  motive?”  Mr.  Nolen 
asked  at  the  Biltmore  meeting.  “The  only  motive  that  can  move 
effectively  in  a big  enterprise  like  the  ‘Farm  City'  project  is  one  of 
financial  profit,  mainly  that;  but  combined  with  it  high  ideals  of 
service  dealing  with  fundamental  problems.  We  need  to  shift  merely 
the  point  of  view  with  regard  to  doing  this,  as  has  been  said  by  Major 
James, — not  to  be  philanthropic,  but  to  get  better  W'a3^s  and  different 
ways  of  making  money ; secondly',  to  turn  from  products  like  chewing 
gum  or  the  safety  razor  or  some  new  and  perhaps  ingenious  automobile 
accessory,  for  all  of  which  there  is  ample  capital,  to  solving  some  of 
these  great  problems.  It  is  not  those  things  that  our  civilization 
needs,  it  is  food  and  homes  and  recreation,  and  do  you  know  of  any 
enterprise  that  strikes  at  the  heax’t  of  food  and  homes  and  recreation 
and  wealth  and  the  soundness  of  our  civilization  like  the  solving  of 
the  problems  of  the  country  combined  with  the  satisfaction  which 
people  now  crave  and  which  is  made  quite  evident  that  they  feel  can 
be  found  only  in  the  city?  So  we  have  this  device — invention — what- 
ever I may  call  it,  of  the  ‘Farm  City.’ 

“Bertrand  Russell  said  there  arc  only  two  things  that  block 
our  progress:  One  the  mastery  and  application  of  science — and  w'e 
have  that  and  have  it  to  spare — the  other  social,  political,  civic  and 
economic  organization, — and  there  we  are  still  lamentably  weak. 

“The  problem  here  is  to  set  going  machinery  that  will  make 
that  kind  of  organization  possible.  It  has  been  our  privilege — of 

[ 10  ] 


Mr.  Foster,  who  is  associated  with  me,  and  myself — to  present  a study 
of  this  ‘Farm  City’  project, — and  there  it  is,  that  diagram.”  (See 
page  4.) 

GERALD  STANLEY  LEE,  whose  “Air  Line  to  Liberty”  and  other  con- 
tributions of  inspiration  helped  so  powerfully  toward  a high  morale  in  the  war, 
sees  in  the  plans  of  The  Farm  Cities  Corporation  the  means  of  dramatizing  to 
the  country  great  new  possibilities  of  rural  life. 

“When  the  country-minded  people  know  that  things  are  so  con- 
trived at  last  by  engineers  and  others  that  they  can  have  country 
life  and  all  the  advantages  of  city  life  together — can  have  the  cows 
and  hens  for  the  family — all  the  simple,  lovable,  sincere  straightfor- 
ward and  elemental  things  and  can  have  the  city  things  besides,  all 
those  who  are  so  minded  are  going  to  flock  to  the  country,”  said  Mr. 

Lee.  “The  idea  has  merely  got  to  be  dramatized  on  a sufficiently 
large  scale  to  make  a unit  and  then  that  unit  can  be  endlessly 
multiplied. 

“The  essential  idea  has  already  been  tried  out  by  Mr.  MacRae. 

What  is  wanted  now  is  to  do  the  thing  on  a larger  scale  so  that  it 
can  attract  the  attention  of  the  whole  country  and  can  repeat  itself 
over  and  over  again. 

“What  is  wanted  for  our  civilization  now  is  to  have  some 
people  come  along  and  present  to  us  a conception  of  country  life 
that  people  can  enjoy  together — present  to  us  a farm  city — that  is 
to  say  a community  which  has  all  the  traits  and  attributes  of  the 
city  and  yet  one  in  which  the  people  are  working  on  farms. 

“When  someone — as  we  are  doing  now — proceeds  to  dramatize 
country  life  as  it  might  be,  people  are  going  to  live  it. 

“What  the  country  dramatizes  to  most  people  now  is  solitude, 
wide  spaces,  and  silence,  the  crowing  of  the  cock,  the  lowing  of  the 
cow  and  the  homely  separated  things.  And  when  our  women  of  today 
come  to  the  farms  of  this  scattered  and  lonely  kind  and  begin  bring- 
ing their  children  up  on  them,  they  find  themselves  thinking  of  other 
things  besides.  They  find  themselves  thinking  in  the  terms  of  social 
desire  and  ambition  and  hope. 

“What  this  enterprise  is  going  to  be  able  to  do  is  to  make 
civilization  again  appeal  to  people  close  to  the  ground  and  make  our 
people  when  they  think  of  life,  not  think  of  the  roar  and  darkness  of 
the  subway  and  the  hurry  and  the  smoke,  but  of  the  sky  above  us,  the 
green  grass  growing  around  us  and  of  children  playing  in  the  door- 
yard — playing  with  the  things  children  were  born  to  delight  in  and 
to  love.” 

MAJOR  A.  L.  JAMES,  who  was  a member  of  Pershing’s  General  Staff 
in  France,  sketched  the  details  of  The  Farm  Cities  Corporation  plans.  He  is  one 
of  the  Army  men  who  see  the  country’s  need  of  service  in  peace  no  less  than  in  war. 
In  part  he  said : — 

“In  a nutshell  our  problem  is  that  of  making  agricultural  life 
economically  profitable  and  socially  satisfying. 

“There  are  many  partial  solutions.  The  one  here  proposed 
is  very  simple.  Its  aim  is  that  just  stated:  to  make  farming  a better 

[ 11  ] 


THE 

FARM  CITIES 
CORPORATION 
OF  AMERICA 


SETTLER 
IS  PRO- 
TECTED 
FROM 
EXPLOIT- 
ATION 
THROUGH 
LIMITATION 
OF 

DIVIDENDS 


paying  proposition  and  to  provide  satisfactory  social  conditions.  Its 
chief  virtue  lies  in  the  fact  that  instead  of  continuing  to  talk  about 
what  rural  communities  might  be,  we  propose  to  make  actual  working 
models  of  properly  planned  and  organized  farming  communities. 
We  believe  that  these  models  will  be  worth  infinitely  more  than  all  the 
talk  about  what  might  be.  It  is  believed  that  the  time  for  mere  talk 
has  passed,  and  the  time  for  action  has  come. 

“What  we  propose  is  the  establishment  of  what  Mr.  Gerald 
Stanley  Lee  has  termed  a ‘Farm  City.’  This,  as  the  name  implies, 
will  be  a community  that  combines  the  advantages  of  both  country 
and  town;  where  inliabltants  will  have  the  independence  of  those  who 
gain  their  living  by  tilling  the  soil,  and  all  the  social  advantages 
that  are  the  result  of  efficient  community  organization,  such  as  exists 
now  only  in  the  cities.  In  other  words  we  desire,  as  far  as  is  possible, 
to  combine  the  good  features  of  town  and  country  and  eliminate  the 
bad  features  of  both. 

“Permit  me  to  sketch  briefly  how  this  project  could  be 
carried  out. 

“First  there  must  be  the  provision  of  ample  capital  for  finan- 
cing the  undertaking.  Aiid  it  should  he  distinctly  understood  that 
this  is  a sound  business  proposition — it  is  self-supporting.  It  is  the 
belief  of  all  those  xvho  are  interested  in  it  that  it  must  be  self-support- 
ing; that  there  must  be  a fair  return  on  the  developing  capital. 
Without  going  into  details,  I may  say  in  passing  that  the  financial 
plans  provide  for  such  a return,  but  the  settler  is  protected  from 
exploitation  through  a provision  that  all  revenue  of  the  developing 
corporation  above  such  a fair  return  shall  go  back  into  the  com- 
munity in  the  form  of  improvements. 

“The  necessary  capital  having  been  provided,  the  next  step 
is  the  selection  of  a suitable  tract  of  land  for  the  development.  The 
selection  of  a location  for  the  first  ‘Farm  City’  is  of  tremendous 
importance.  The  location  should  be  such  as  to  give  the  highest 
probability  of  making  it  a big  success — it  should  be  where  the  task 
would  be  easiest.  Naturally,  some  mistakes  will  be  made  and  we  want 
as  big  factors  of  safety  as  possible.  After  the  first  ‘Farm  City’  has 
become  a success  we  can  tackle  more  and  more  difficult  localities, 
benefittlng  by  what  we  learn  as  we  go  along. 

“The  experts  say  that  the  size  of  the  tract  should  be  not  less 
than  8,000  acres,  but,  of  course,  that  depends  on  the  locality  chosen. 
The  land  should  be  cheap,  fertile  and  readily  brought  under  cultiva- 
tion. It  should  be  in  a locality  that  is  healthful ; where  the  climate  is 
suitable  for  the  development  of  an  intensive  type  of  agriculture;  and 
not  too  far  removed  from  the  great  consuming  centers  along  the 
Atlantic  Seaboard.  I recently  asked  the  head  of  a great  railway 
system  how  far  away  from  New  York  such  a development  might  be. 
His  reply  was : ‘The  ideal  location  would  be  twenty-four  hours  south 
of  New  York  by  fast  freight.  Such  a location  would  give  farmers 
the  benefits  of  high  prices  for  early  products,  combined  with  the 
advantage  of  placing  such  products  on  the  New  York  markets  the 
second  morning  after  shij)ment.’  He  was,  of  course,  referring  to 
garden  truck,  which  plays  a large  part  in  intensive  agriculture. 

[ 12  ] 


“Having  selected  and  purchased  a suitable  tract  of  land,  the 
best  experts  in  the  world  should  survey  the  tract  and  plan  an  entire 
community.  The  principles  of  such  planning  have  been  established, 
but  the  actual  plans  should  be  worked  out  by  men  of  the  highest 
ability,  who  have  the  vision  of  what  such  communities  might  be. 

“Near  the  centre  of  the  tract  there  would  be  a town-site,  or 
community  centre.  This  would  be  laid  out  in  such  a way  as  to  pro- 
vide for  the  establishment  of  desirable  industries,  educational  and 
social  institutions,  amusement  facilities,  homes  and  the  numerous 
other  things  that  will  readily  come  to  your  minds. 

“The  farming  tracts  that  would  lie  around  the  community 
centre  would  vary  in  size  directly  in  proportion  to  their  distance  from 
such  a center.  In  other  words,  in  the  zone  immediately  surrounding 
the  town  the  tracts  would  be  very  small,  and  in  the  successive  zones 
would  gradually  increase  in  size.  This  kind  of  layout  permits  the 
maximum  concentration  of  families  in  a given  area,  with  the  many 
consequent  advantages ; provides  for  various  types  of  agriculture  in 
the  different  zones ; and  reduces  transportation  costs  to  a minimum. 

The  many  additional  advantages  are  too  evident  to  be  discussed  in 
detail. 

“Having  comprehensive,  far  sighted  plans,  the  Corporation 
would  proceed  to  the  actual  work  of  development.  This  would  include 
improvement  of  a part  of  the  tract  by  doing  the  necessary  clearing, 
draining,  road-building,  etc.,  preparing  a portion  of  the  farm  for 
immediate  use  by  bringing  the  fields  into  condition  for  planting,  and 
by  building  a certain  number  of  attractive  and  inexpensive  homes 
and  farm  buildings ; making  a beginning  on  the  town  centre  by  pro- 
viding some  of  the  essential  buildings  there;  providing  a training  farm 
and  centre  of  agricultural  co-operation.  In  short,  the  Farm  City 
would  be  put  into  condition  for  receiving  the  first  settlers,  and  the 
farms  of  these  settlers  would  be  in  such  condition  as  to  enable  them 
to  start  farming  at  once.  This  would  eliminate  the  discouraging 
pioneering  period,  that  is  both  unnecessary  and  economically 
wasteful. 

“While  these  developments  are  being  made,  the  process  of 
selecting  settlers  will  have  begun.  I often  am  asked : ‘Where  will  you 
get  the  settlers.^’  The  answer  is:  From  all  sections  of  the  country. 
Contrary  to  the  general  impression,  there  are  many  thousands  of 
families  who  are  anxious  to  get  a start  on  the  soil.  The  Interior 
Department  has  on  file  thousands  of  applications  for  farms  on  the 
great  irrigation  projects — applications  far  beyond  the  lands  avail- 
able in  those  projects.  Our  problem  is  not  to  attract  settlers  hut  to 
select  them.  And  thei’e  is  where  we  have  a great  advantage  over  the 
government — in  being  able  to  select.  In  making  that  selection  we 
shall  endeavor  to  get  settlers  of  the  type  who  will  make  good.  No 
settler  would  be  accepted  unless  he  believes  in  co-operation  and  agrees 
to  join  the  co-operative  association. 

“Farms  will  be  sold  on  long  term  payments.  Experience  in 
land  settlement  has  shown  that  the  settler  should  make  a substantial 
cash  payment,  and  that  payment  of  the  balance  should  be  arranged 
on  such  reasonable  terms  that  the  money  can  be  earned  from  farming 

[ 13  ] 


THE 

FARM  CITIES 
CORPORATION 
OF  AMERICA 


“BETTER 

FARMING, 

BETTER 

BUvSINESS, 

AND 
BETTER 
LIVING 
ON  THE 
FARM.” 

— Roourvplt. 


operations.  In  this  matter  we  shall  follow  the  most  approved  and 
enlightened  practice. 

After  farmers  are  located  on  the  land  they  will  be  given  expert 
advice  and  guidance,  not  only  in  raising  crops,  but  in  the  organiza- 
tion and  management  of  efficient  co-operative  associations  for  buying 
and  selling.  Sanitation  and  health  will  be  looked  to  by  a central 
organization.  Provision  will  be  made  for  educational  and  recrea- 
tional facilities. 

“The  town  center  will  develop  as  the  farms  are  occupied,  and 
there  will  follow,  to  such  an  extent  as  seems  desirable,  the  establish- 
ment of  industries  that  will  be  complementary  to  agriculture.  The 
first  of  these  will  probably  be  creameries,  canneries  and  the  like,  and 
there  is,  of  course,  a long  list  of  other  industries  suitable  for  such 
communities. 

''The  project  for  th^  establishment  of  a Farm  City  is  an 
enlightened  effort  to  make  a real  contribution  to  our  civilization. 
It  is  founded  on  correct  principles;  it  can  be  successfully  carried 
out.  If  we  make  a success  of  one  such  community,  we  shall  be 
pointing  the  xvay  to  a great  volume  of  capital  whose  owners  would 
like  to  have  their  wealth  earning  a fair  retiirn  while  engaged  in  a 
development  that  is  for  the  good  of  all.  The  result  would  he  the 
reshaping  of  miral  life  in  a way  that  would  bring  happiness  and 
independence  to  countless  thousands,  and  would  give  to  our  institu- 
tions a stability  that  would  render  us  immune  to  fantastic  theories 
that  bring  destruction  in  their  wake. 

“I  want  each  one  of  you  to  realize  that  this  is  not  the  problem 
of  any  particular  class,  nor  is  the  proposed  solution  the  pet  scheme 
of  any  particular  group.  It  is  a national  problem  and  the  solution 
should  be  of  national  scope.  It  is  your  problem  and  mine,  and  if  we 
believe  in  the  proposed  solution  it  becomes  our  duty  actively  to 
assist  in  making  it  successful.” 


In  1908  the  late  William  K.  Vanderbilt  is  credited  with  having 
observed: — “There  are  too  many  people  in  the  United  States  trying 
to  live  off  the  other  fellow.  The  day  will  come  when  most  of  us  must 
become  producers.” 


[ H ] 


“HAS  ANYBODY  DEMONSTRATED  THAT  IT  CAN  BE  DONE?” 

In  its  leaclin^^  cclitoi'ial  in  the  issue  of  July  15,  1922,  Collier’s,  The 
National  Weekly,  discussing  the  Farm  City  project  of  The  Farm  Cities  Corpora- 
tion of  America,  remarks  : — 

“We  all  need  to  know  about  demonstrations  like  the  one  de- 
scribed by  Miss  Tarhell  in  this  issue.  The  'principle  is  not  limited  in 
its  application  to  dirt  farmers  and  ten  acres.  Indeed,  there  is  a 
larger  and  even  more  important  MacRae  project  now  forming.  It 
is  to  be  known  as  the  Farm  City." 

The  demonstration  referred  to  is  described  b}'  Miss  Ida  M.  Tarbell  in  a 
special  article  written  after  a study  of  the  MacRae  colonies  in  North  Carolina. 
The  article  contains  the  answer  to  the  question  above. 

Collier’s  has  courteously  permitted  the  Farm  Cities  Corporation  to  reprint 
Miss  Tarbell’s  article.  It  demonstrates  in  dramatic  fashion  that  what  the  corpora- 
tion proposes  to  do  has  been  and  can  be  done,  for  not  only  the  experience  and 
ability  which  has  made  a success  of  these  colonies  is  to  be  a part  of  the  equipment 
of  The  Farm  Cities  Corporation  of  America,  but  that  which  has  helped  to  success 
the  great  national  reclamation  colonies  in  the  West,  and  the  best  brains,  experience 
and  talent  anywhere  to  be  found  is  definitely  alligned  with  it. 

The  story  of  the  “demonstration,”  as  told  by  Miss  Tarbell,  is  reprinted 
as  a separate  folder  accompanying  this  pamphlet. 

BASIS  AND  ORIGIN  OF  PRESENT  PROJECT 

Care  has  been  taken  in  this  statement  of  the  plans  and  purposes  of  The 
Farm  Cities  Corporation  of  America  not  to  limit  or  bind  present  or  future  direc- 
tors of  the  corporation  in  their  action,  but,  in  order  that  they  might  have  as 
complete  a foundation  of  facts  at  hand  as  possible,  the  best  experts  have  already 
been  called  upon  to  examine  and  report  upon  a particular,  concrete  project. 

The  possibilities  of  the  successful  execution  of  a “Farm  City”  project  on 
a tract  of  10,000  acres  located  in  Pender  County,  North  Carolina,  near  the  suc- 
cessful communities  described  by  Miss  Tarbell  in  Collier’s,  were  examined. 

These  are  the  subject  of  a report,  detailed  and  complete,  made  recently  by 
Thomas  Adams,  Town  Planning  Expert  and  Consultant  of  the  Canadian  Gov- 
ernment’s Commission  of  Conservation,  in  which  ai’e  included  the  conclusions  of 
investigations  made  by  John  Nolen,  of  Cambridge,  Mass.;  Dr.  A.  J.  Bonsteel  and 
J.  R.  Eddy,  soil  experts;  Dr.  W.  T.  Rankin,  State  Health  Officer  of  North 
Carolina;  Professor  Stiles,  of  the  U.  S.  Public  Health  Service;  Martin  G.  Smith, 
Veterinary  Inspector  of  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Animal  Industry;  Dr.  Charles 
Dearing,  in  charge  of  U.  S.  experiments  at  the  State  farm  at  Willard,  N.  C., 
and  others. 

This  report  is  too  voluminous  to  include  in  these  pages,  but  is  available  for 
those  desiring  to  study  it.  The  report  covers  a description  of  the  characteristics 
and  historical  features  of  the  region ; its  climatic  and  health  conditions ; soils  and 
cropping  conditions ; transportation  of  products  to  market ; expert  advice  and 
training  of  settlers;  need  for  providing  stable  conditions  of  settlement;  educa- 
tion, water  supply,  underlying  clays,  marl  and  limestone;  success  of  settlers  in 
the  region;  facilities  for  tourists;  plans  and  surveys  and  recommendations  upon 
methods  of  organization  and  financing. 


THE 

FARM  CITIES 
CORPORATION 
OF  AMERICA 


[ 15  ] 


THE 

FARM  CITIES 
CORPORATION 
OF  AMERICA 


A sentence  or  two  from  Mr.  Adams’  conclusions  is  sufficient  to  indicate  the 
character  of  these  experts’  analyses  of  the  project.  He  says: 

“A  great  opportunity  exists  in  Pender  County  for  carrying 
out  a land  development  project  of  national  importance.  The  natural 
conditions  are  entirely  favorable — soil,  climate,  land  values,  access- 
ibility to  market,  etc.  . . . With  a properly  organized  project  hav- 
ing behind  it  sufficient  capital  and  expert  advice  and  good  manage- 
ment by  men  who  believe  in  co-operative  effort  plus  individual  re- 
sponsibility, and  with  the  selection  of  suitable  lands  at  current  values, 

I cannot  conceive  that  the  results  would  be  otherwise  than  completely 
successful — both  as  an  investment  for  those  who  promote  the  project 
and  as  a paying  enterprise  for  settlers.^’ 


ROOSEVELT’S  WARNING 

“I  warn  my  countrymen  that  the  great  progress  made  in  city 
life  is  not  a full  measure  of  our  civilization;  for  our  civilization  rests 
at  bottom  on  the  wholesomeness,  the  attractiveness,  and  the  com- 
pleteness, as  well  as  the  prosperity,  of  life  in  the  country.  The  men 
and  women  on  the  farms  stand  for  what  is  fundamentally  best  and 
most  needed  in  our  American  life.  Upon  the  development  of  country 
life  rests  ultimately  our  ability,  by  methods  of  farming  requiring 
the  highest  intelligence,  to  continue  to  feed  and  clothe  the  hungry 
nations ; to  supply  the  city  with  fresh  blood,  clean  bodies,  and  clear 
brains  that  can  endure  the  terrific  strain  of  modern  life;  we  need  the 
development  of  men  in  the  open  country,  who  will  be  in  the  future, 
as  in  the  past,  the  stay  and  strength  of  the  nation  in  time  of  war, 
and  its  guiding  and  controlling  spirit  in  time  of  peace.” — From 
President  Roosevelt’s  letter  to  Congress  transmitting  the  report  of 
the  Country  Life  Commission,  February  9,  1909. 


[ 16  ] 


Fro  111 


The  Farm  Cities  Corporation  of  America 


Will  Your  Home  Be  Happy  as  Theirs? 


} lliistraiiou  from  Collier's  by  Jack  Flanaoan 

Reprinted  from  Collier  The  National  Weekly^  issue  of  July  15,  1922,  through  the  courtesy  and  with  the  kind  permission  of  the  publishers. 

By  Ida  M.  Tarbell 


Three  slight  and  widely  sepa-ated 
personal  experiences  are  respon- 
sible for  this  article.  The  first  was 
ten  years  ago.  I was  visiting  a great  steel 
plant,  a beautiful  plant  with  real  grass 
and  real  vines  in  its  yards.  On  a bench 
beside  a green  plot  sat  a huge  Czech 
worker — a twelve-hour-a-day  man — resting 
from  his  turn  at  the  furnace,  his  head  in 
his  hand. 

“Too  hot,  faint?”  I asked. 

He  looked  up  scornfully,  and  then, 
sensing  a real  concern,  pointed  to  the 
grass.  “I  seek  for  farm.” 

“But  why  not?  There’s  land  for  all  in 
this  country.” 

“I  not  know  where,  how.” 

Two  years  later  an  expert  woman  ac- 
countant, with  a handsome  salary,  turned 
on  me  fiercely  when  I spoke  of  her  success. 

“Success!  This  shut-in  life!  I was 
born  for  the  land.  I could  make  it  give 
up,  but  where  can  I get  it  with  roads,  a 
market,  neighbors,  decent  credit?  With- 
out them  it’s  too  uncertain.  There  are 
others  to  consider.  But  me — I am  sick  for 
the  land.” 

The  third  was  last  November — Armistice 
Day,  in  Washington.  The  day  brought  out 
hundreds  of  veterans,  among  them  the  dis- 


Concerning  the  Author 

In  the  issue  in  which  this 
article  appeared,  an  editorial 
page  contained  the  following 
comment : 

“M  iss  Tarbell’s  name  appears  on 
many  of  the  recent  lists  of  the 
twelve  most  distinguished  women 
of  America.  Her  Life  of  Lincoln 
was  placed  hy  Charles  A.  Dana 
among  the  ten  indispensable  hooks 
for  Americans.  A great  historian 
said  her  ‘History  of  the  Standard 
Oil  Company’  was  the  only  work  of 
its  kind  corroborated  hy  the  find- 
ings of  the  Supreme  Court.  As 
historian,  magazine  writer,  and  lec- 
turer, all  Miss  Tarbell  does  is 
infused  with  unusual  human  un- 
derstanding.” 


ahled,  out  for  a little  freedom.  Alone  I 
went  into  a restaurant.  A pale  lad  in 
olive  drab — an  eye  gone — sat  at  a table. 
I did  as  I would  have  done  in  1917  or 
1918:  asked  to  join  him. 

The  ice  broken,  he  did  as  he  would  have 
done  then:  told  me  of  himself.  “Me  for 


the  land.”  he  said.  “My  trade  takes  two 
eyes.  1 could  run  a little  farm — hens,  cow, 
garden,  bees.  Why  don’t  they  come  across 
w'ith  something  a man  like  me  can  look 
at?  I can't  pioneer.  1 did  my  jtart  of 
that  in  France.  Ain't  nobody  going  to  help 
us  to  land  like  they  promised  when  we 
was  fightin’  for  ’em?” 

You  know,  as  I did,  that  there  are  tens 
of  thousands  of  other  peojtle  like  them 
trai)ped  in  shops  and  factories  ami  offices. 
You  come  to  jump  at  any  proof  that  it  is 
possible  for  them  to  have  tl’.eir  heart’s  de- 
sire: get  land  to  tame  or  redeem  on  such 
terms  that  they  can  enjoy  plenty  and  con- 
tent as  they  make  their  con(|uest.  But  is 
there  any  such  i)roof?  Has  anybody 
demonstiated  that  it  can  he  done?  That 
is,  has  anybody  set  up  the  princi])les  for 
colonization  as  they  have  been  set  for 
making  steel  and  building  bridges,  worked 
out  methods  which  make  it  as  nearly  fool- 
proof and  swindle-proof  as  human  under- 
takings can  be  made? 

We  have  such  a demonstration  on  the 
Atlantic  Coast.  1 had  supposed,  until  I 
went  to  see  it,  that  it  should  be  classed 
as  an  experiment — and  I wanted  some- 
thing sure — but  the  ct)lonies  of  Hugh  Mac- 
Kae  in  New  Hanover  and  Pender  Counties, 


Will  Your  Home  Be  Happy  as  Theirs? 


North  Carolina,  are  no  longer  an  experi- 
ment. They  are  one  of  the  completest  and 
most  far-reaching  demonstrations  that  the 
country  has  as  yet  seen  of  how  to  settle 
land  so  that  your  original  settler  will  get 
something  besides  doubt,  pain,  atid  failure 
out  of  it. 

MacKae  seems  to  have  begun  life  land- 
minded  and  always  to  have  had  an  appre- 
ciation of  what  people  call  “dirt  farming” 
- something  that  has  an  essence  in  it  that 
usually  eludes  the  “gentleman  farmer.” 
As  he  grew  up  he  could  not  get  it  out  of 
his  blood.  School  did  not  do  it.  The 
Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology, 
where  he  was  graduated,  could  not  do  it. 
Indeed,  while  a student  there,  the  possi- 
bility when  he  went  back  home — home 
being  Wilmington,  N.  C. — of  doing  some- 
thing to  develop  the  vast  acreage  of  swamp 
and  timber  land  that  spread  north,  south, 
and  west  from  the  town  had  strong  hold 
of  his  mind.  The  matter  with  Wilmington, 
people  said,  was  that  it  had  no  “back 
country.”  But  couldn’t  you  make  one? 
The  land  was  there — couldn’t  you  redeem 
it,  settle  it?  He  went  so  far  as  to  formu- 
late a plan  of  colonization,  but  nobody 
would  consider  it.  A boy’s  folly! 

A few  years  later  and  he  was  free  to 
follow  his  “folly.”  He  was  responsib'e  for 
varied  interests  in  and  around  Wilmington, 
but  bis  mind  still  dwelt  on  the  rescue  of 
the  vast  surrounding  acreage.  He  re- 
ceived no  encouragement.  It  was  not  a 
land  for  white  men,  he  was  told.  Its  air 
was  sick  with  malaria.  Hugh  MacRae 
pondered,  and  finally,  when  the  citv’s 
power  plant  came  under  his  management, 
he  flouted  superstition  and  ran  a trolley 
line  straight  into  the  condemned  area,  in- 
viting settlers  to  follow! 

He  was  not  unconscious  that  his  “folly” 
might  in  truth  be  just  that.  Was  tins 
malaria,  that  had  ke])l  Wilmington  within 
its  city  limits  for  all  these  decades,  “in 
the  air,”  as  they  said;  or  was  it.  as  the 
scientists  said,  carried  by  moscpiitoes?  He 
wa'ched  his  street-car  motormen  and  con- 
ductors. If  it  was  in  the  air.  then  they 
would  take  it.  He  saw  them  growing  rosy 
under  the  outdoor  life.  It  was  the  mos- 
quito. If  the  land  he  wanteil  used  was 
drained,  the  houses  where  people  lived 
screenerl,  there  would  be  no  danger.  He 
went  at  it.  To-day  Wilmington  is  fringed 
with  miles  of  beautifu'  suburbs — the  chil- 
dren of  Hugh  MacKae’s  folly. 

The  Idea  People  Laughe.'l  At 

But  his  mind  was  on  a still  larger 
thing  than  helping  town  iieojile  to 
pleasanter  homes,  a bit  of  land  of 
their  own.  He  wanted  to  see  those 
savanna  lands  and  forests  converted  into 
farms,  productive  farms,  filled  with  thriv- 
ing, haiijiy  peoiile  peoiile  who  otherwise 
would  have  little  or  no  chance.  He  had 
proved  they  con'd  be  made  hea'thy.  But 
how  about  the  soil?  Its  yield  for  genera- 
tions had  been  “tar,  iiitch,  and  tur|)entine.” 
Few  saw  on  its  line  sandy  loams  a (it 
(ilace  for  farming.  Farmers  ncded  “black” 
soil.  As  for  the  savannas  and  swamiis — 
they  were  just  places  to  be  avoided, 
dreaded. 

H(^  set  to  studying  it.  He  saw  in  the 
scattered,  unconnected  jiatidies  that  white 
and  negro  farmers  still  kejit  iq)  wondiTfiil 


growths  of  vegetables,  of  strawberries.  If 
they  could  do  it  on  a little  .scattered  patch, 
couldn’t  it  be  done  on  big  patches?  People 
laughed  at  the  idea.  He  went  to  experts 
in  soil  for  their  verdict.  It  was  dazzling. 
This  condemned  tract,  they  told  him,  lay 
in  the  most  fertile  belt  on  the  Atlantic 
Coast — the  winter  garden  for  the  North- 
eastern .States.  Its  soils  were  of  the  famous 
Norfolk  and  Portsmouth  fine  sandy  loam 
series.  It  had  from  233  to  2.50  “growing 
days” — that  is.  days  without  frost  that 
kills;  a rainfall  of  fifty-five  inches,  well 
distributed  through  the  year;  pure  water 
to  be  had  everywhere  for  the  digging,  or 
within  reach  of  the  driven  pump. 

What  would  grow  on  this  soil?  All 
sorts  of  garden  truck — strawberries,  lettuce, 
asparagus.  Irish  potatoes,  sweet  potatoes, 
peppers,  tomatoes,  peas,  beans;  and.  as 
well,  corn,  cotton,  tobacco,  peanuts.  It  was 
possible,  so  said  the  soil  experts,  for  an 
industrious  person  to  raise  seven  crops  a 
year  on  this  outcast  land.  Testing  con- 
firmed all  they  said.  He  could  certify  this 
soil. 

Hugh  MacRae  had  established  the  fiist 
principle  of  successful  colonization — prov- 
ing what  the  land  will  yield.  If  this  prin- 
ciple had  been  followed  in  this  country',  it 
would  have  prevented  tens  of  thousands  of 
heartbreaking  tragedies.  Lands  have  been, 
and  are  to-day,  sold  to  the  credu’ous  and 
hopeful  which  never  .satisfy  one  of  the 
claims  made  for  them.  And  the  settler 
has  no  redress.  Everything  else  he  buys 
has  at  least  a sort  of  certification — not  so 
the  land. 

Do  you  know  men  who  invested  their 
all  in  Florida  Everglades,  to  find  when 
they  and  their  families  reached  t!:eir  ]nir- 
chase  that  it  lay  under  the  yvater?  Do 
you  know  men  who  journeyed  across  the 
plains  to  a “home”  to  find  no  water  above 
ground  nor  any  below  nearer  than  a 
thousand  feet?  For  one  who  has  forced 
fortune  from  a swindler’s  gold  hrick  a 
score  have  lost  heart,  moved  on,  left  their 
bones  in  their  tracks.  The  certification  of 
the  land,  holding  the  seller  responsible  if 
it  is  not  what  he  pretended  it  to  be,  is  the 
first  step  in  restoring  confidence  to  the 
millions  who  both  want,  and  fear,  to  own 
land. 

But  your  land  may  do  all  that  the  seller 
promises,  and  still  do  you  no  good  if  you 
have  no  a'l-the-year-roiind  read  and  no 
steady  market.  Transiiortation  and  mar- 
kets must  be  assured  as  the  land  is  assured. 
Hugh  MacRae  knew  that  he  could  fii'lill 
these  further  essentia's.  He  had  trans- 
iiortation cutting  straight  through  the 
heart  of  this  lerrilory,  a railroad  whose 
management  harl  developed  the  highest 
efficiency  in  handling  perishab'e  products. 
Its  management  was  only  too  eager  to  liidp. 
This  railroad  went  to  great  markets  mar- 
kets organized  to  lake  prodirts  smdi  as 
might  be  produced  on  these  soils,  at  prices 
reasonably  certain  to  be  fair,» 

On  this  basis  he  began  culling  swamp 
and  savanna  into  len  acre  tracts,  idearing 
and  draining  a bit  of  eaili.  He  wanted 
his  setth'rs  at  the  start  to  have  a parcid 
ready  to  till,  enough  at  least  for  a season’s 
food. 

He  probably  was  led  to  this  coloniza- 


tion principle  by  bis  own  common  sense. 
Let  one  ask  himself  how  he  would  feel 
confronted  by  an  unbroken  tract — no  tree 
cut.  no  drain  run.  MacRae’s  rule  seems 
to  have  been  this:  Avoid  discouraging  your 
settler  when  he  arrives.  And  then  he 
started  out  to  find  his  people. 

“You  can’t  find  them.  They  are  not  in 
North  Carolina,”  the  doubters  said. 

“That  may  be  true,  but  I mean  to  bring 
them  to  her.” 

“Those  that  come  will  have  no  money,” 
said  the  doubters. 

“I  don’t  expect  them  to  have  much.” 
said  Hugh  MacRae.  “I  shall  give  them 
long-time  credit.  This  is  not  specu’ation 
or  exploitation  that  I am  undertaking.  It 
is  business — biLsiness  for  the  good  of  all 
concerned,  and  business  means  credit.” 

It  Takes  a Family  to  Make  a Home 

He  knew  the  people  he  wanted  first. 
They  must  love  the  land — love  it 
well  enough  to  be  willing  to  sacri- 
fice. to  possess  it.  They  must  be  people 
wbo  knew  bow  to  coax  its  riches  from  it, 
patient  with  its  vagaries,  studious  of  its 
needs — “dirt  farmers,”  willing  to  use  their 
hands.  They  must  be  people  of  integrity, 
sincerity.  He  would  sell  to  no  one  who 
did  not  look  on  his  purchase  as  a future 
home,  no  one  who  wanted  to  hold  the  tract 
for  specu’ation. 

He  had  a long  search,  and  at  last  went 
abroad  for  them.  In  other  lanils,  he  ar- 
gued, were  men  who  would  understand, 
men  who  having  no  chance  of  proprietor- 
ship at  home  might  take  it  if  offered  to 
them  in  a new  country.  They  w'ould  bring 
farming  lore  of  their  own,  bred  into  their 
bono — invaluable  to  them,  because  they 
had  grown  up  with  it.  They  would  co- 
operate naturally  because  they  were  of  the 
same  race  and  came  together.  These  co- 
operating groups  would  buy,  sell,  build 
together. 

Among  the  first  to  come  were  the  CTreeks. 
They  came  alone,  with.cut  wife  or  child — 
eager  for  t'’e  adventure.  The  .settlement 
they  formed  was  named  Marathon.  It 
proved  a failure  for  them.  “Man  cannot 
live  alone."  The  Greeks  could  not  live 
without  families.  They  gave  up  the 
venture. 

But  of  this  experience,  greeted  by  the 
“I  told  you  so”  of  the  doubters,  Hugb 
MacRae  added  another  to  his  principles 
of  colonization.  Golonizalion,  he  could 
write  down  now.  is  a lamily  piadthnn  — 
social  and  economic.  Making  a home  on 
raw  land  by  those  ol  lilth',  or  perhaps 
mnc'i,  capital  lavpiires  a lamily.  The  tasks 
retpiire  a combination  of  skill  and  varying 
ages:  a man  with  strong  hands  and  head; 
a wciman  with  a woman’s  courage  and  a 
housewife’s  .arts;  ehildren,  many  of  them, 
for  errands  and  chores  and  taking  on  the 
heavier  labor  ns  they  grow  strong  and  the 
father  anil  mother  grow  weak;  the  grand- 
father and  griindmolher  for  |)oullry  and 
gardening. 

.Slopping  recently  before  a (lonris'iing 
len  acre  farm  owned  by  one  id  the  older 
settlers,  and  asking  how  things  were  going 
with  him.  1 was  told  with  joy  that  the 
grandfather  had  come  from  Belgium  to 
live  with  them,  that  he  had  taken  over  the 
garden.  It  was  such  a help.  He  was  only 


Will  Your  liorae  Be  Happy  as  Theirs? 


seventy-six!  (Tlie  garden  looked  as  if  he 
were  thirty.)  Everywhere  we  went  the 
great  news  told  us  hy  the  older  colonists 
was  of  new  relatives  that  had  arrived — a 
sister,  an  aunt,  a cousin.  More  hands 
meant  more  crops,  more  easement  for  all, 
more  gayety. 

Henceforth  it  was  families  only  Mr. 
MacRae  sought.  He  sought  them  in  Italy, 
in  Holland;  and  they  came  as  fully  certi- 
fied as  the  land  they  came  to. 

But  this  was  not  what  Hugh  MacRae 
was  seeking — groups  of  foreigners,  how- 
ever prosperous.  He  wanted  to  make  citi- 
zens, American  citizens,  for  North  Caro- 
lina. “Folly!”  the  onlookers  cried.  “It 
can’t  be  done.”  And  yet  it  was  done, 
though  not  by  calculation,  as  everything  so 
far  had  been  done.  It  was  the  news  of 
the  prosperity  of  the  first  families  that 
did  it,  for  they  were  prospering.  The 
promptness  with  which  the  land  had  re- 
sponded to  the  care  and  affection  they 
brought  to  it  would  never  have  followed 
had  it  not  been  that  friendly  scientific  di- 
rection was  one  of  the  principles  in  Hugh 
MacRae’s  scheme  of  colonization. 

In  the  case  of  these  eastern  North  Caro- 
lina colonies,  there  went  a’ong  an  expert’s 
counsel,  steering  along  a safe  and  opening 
road  the  settler  that  would  take  it. 

Little  wonder  that  the  land-wise  Italians 
and  Dutch  with  this  help  prospered.  They 
soon  were  vying  with  one  another  to  in- 
crease the  tillable  acreage  on  their  ten- 
acre  plots.  The  first  season  convinced 
them  that  it  was  not  going  to  require 
more  than  five  or  six  years  to  own  their 
own  land. 

“In  tree  more  year  I owna  all  dis,”  an 
Italian  boy  said.  He  had  left  his  plow  in 
the  furrow  to  explain  what  he  had  done, 
was  doing,  and  hoped  to  do.  In  his  pride 
and  confidence  he  broke  forth  with  this 
jubilant  exclamation;  “In  tree  year  I owna 
all  dis.” 

While  the  normal  time  to  complete  their 
proprietorship  was  only  from  four  to  six 
years,  there  are  stories  of  exceptions  which 
take  your  breath  away.  Think  of  three 
thousand  dollars  from  an  acre  of  lettuce! 
It  happens.  One  skilled  farmer  buying  on 
credit  a piece  of  cleared  land  came  in 
ninety  days  and  paid  in  full  for  his  tract, 
13,000.  Lettuce.  But  let  me  emphasize — 
these  are  the  exceptions.  They  only  go 
to  show  what  the  land  can  do. 

The  news  spread — spread  into  cities  and 
industrial  centers. 

One  Sunday  last  May,  making  the 
rounds  of  the  settlements,  I stopped  before 
a trim  cottage,  gayly  painted,  set  in  roses 
and  shrubbery:  a good  barn  to  the  rear; 
a big  yard  of  Rhode  Island  Reds  to  the 
side;  a Ford  at  the  door;  five  acres,  at 
least,  of  lettuce;  strawberries,  potatoes,  to 
right  and  left,  the  whole  backed  by  tall, 
long-leaved  pines. 

A smiling  Pole  of  perhaps  thirty  ran 
out,  eager  to  tell  Mr.  MacRae  that  he  was 
clearing  two  more  acres  this  year — a happy 
man  if  ever  I saw  one.  A miracle  had 
happened  to  him,  who  had  come  on  a 
rumor  of  what  had  been  done  in  these 
parts,  attacking  an  untouched  tract,  be- 
cause cheaper.  “Other  fellows  begin  farm- 
ing with  a plow,”  he  said;  “I  begin  with 
an  ax.”  He  took  various  odd  jobs  until  he 
had  cleared  his  first  piece,  and  now,  after 


six  years,  is  a proprietor — land  all  clear,  a 
bank  account,  a family,  happiness. 

A little  farther  on  lay  five  acres  of  as 
perfect  crops  as  ever  one  saw.  This  man, 
they  told  me,  walked  into  the  Wilmington 
office  one  day  without  a dollar.  He  wanted 
land:  would  work.  “We  gave  him  the 
land  and  found  him  a job  at  a dollar  a 
day.  He  hung  over  that  land  from  the 
start  like  a lover  over  his  lady,  and  it  gives 
him  its  best.  Possibly  he  is  worth  twenty 
thousand  dollars  now,  after  about  seven 
years.  ‘That’s  all  right,’  he  says,  when 
we  joke  him  about  getting  rich,  “I  would 
rather  do  this  than  anything  else  in  the 
world,  if  there  was  not  a dollar  in  it,’  and 
I believe  that  is  true.” 

A little  later,  at  Castle  Hayne,  was  a 
Hollander,  who  had  come  there  from  a 
Paterson  factory,  where  he  had  been 
threatened  with  tuberculosis.  He  came  to 
Wilmington  with  little  capital  and  a fam- 
ily; took  his  ten  acres.  It  is  all  in  crops 
now — in  crops  with  artificial  irrigation  and 
cheesecloth  screens  for  extra  early  plant- 
ings, machinery  of  the  best,  a tidy  home, 
health  for  himself.  Above  his  interest  in 
his  crops  (he  had  strawberries  that  would 
pack  forty-five  to  the  basket!)  was  his 
interest  in  “the  best  thing  we’ve  done  in 
the  colony  so  far,”  and  that  was  a co- 
operative house  for  grading  cucumbers — 
a practice  which  they  have  found  sub- 
stantially increases  the  value  of  all  crops. 

These  men  are  samples  of  those  that 
the  spreading  news  brought — the  best  of 
settlers.  But,  more  than  t!  at,  it  was  their 
coming  that  Americanized  the  colonies. 
Up  to  this  time  each  group  had  clung  to 
its  own  tongue,  its  own  customs — even  its 
own  costumes.  Now  they  began  to  vie 
with  one  another  in  American  ways.  They 
would  speak  only  English  to  one  another. 
To  do  as  the  Americans  did  was  a boast. 
To-day  all  the  settlements  are  American. 

Six  Settlements  . in  Thirty  Miles 

WHILE  all  this  was  going  on  Hugh 
MacRae  was  slowly  training  the  col- 
onists to  another  great  principle — 
diversified  crops.  A single  crop,  however 
profitable  one  year,  may  mean  ruin  an- 
other. A man  takes  13.000  from  a small 
area  of  lettuce  and  the  next  season  puts 
his  entire  acreage  into  lettuce;  so  do  his 
neighbors.  They  “break”  the  market. 
Everybody  loses.  There  are  such  things  as 
crop  failures,  and  if  you  have  but  one 
crop  all  is  lost. 

“Diversify,  diversify,”  he  began  to 
preach.  “The  South  has  been  ruined  by 
cotton  and  tobacco.  She  must  learn  to 
raise  what  she  eats — keep  cows,  poultry, 
and  bees.” 

In  1915  a great  blow  to  the  colony  of 
St.  Helena  backed  up  his  theory.  The 
Italians  who  settled  it  had  seen  at  the  start 
that  they  had  a fine  soil  and  climate  for 
grapes.  They  made  vines  the  base  of  their 
business.  The  fruit  paid  handsomely  un- 
til the  Volstead  Act  came,  cutting  the 
foundations  from  under  them,  as  they  be- 
lieved. Under  the  disappointment  some 
left  the  colony — too  early,  for  experience 
is  now  proving  that  the  market  for  grapes 
will  probably  be  as  great  as  it  ever  was. 

A new  base  was  needed  at  St.  Helena, 
and  Hugh  MacRae  had  one  ready  to  sug- 
gest— the  dairy.  “Another  of  his  follies,” 


men  said,  when  he  talked  of  dairies  on 
this  land— Vnq  pasture;  nothing  but  rank 
native  grasses:  cannot  get  a balanced  stock 
ration.”  But  hd  had  been  experimenting. 
If  the  colonists  were  to  he  permanently 
healthy,  they  must  have  stock.  To  have 
stock  they  must  have  pasture.  He  had 
been  going  about  with  his  eye  on  the 
ground  for  some  years. 

One  day  he  found  a tiny  patch  of  white 
clover.  White  clover  was  not  recognized 
as  having  value  in  the  coastal  region  of 
North  Carolina;  but  here  it  was!  If  it 
could  thrive  on  a small  patch,  why  not  on 
a big  one?  He  tried  it,  and  succeeded. 
How  about  other  clovers — the  Japanese 
clover,  the  burr  clover?  He  found  they 
all  grew  if  you  planted  the  seed.  Then 
there  was  the  carpet  grass.  He  began 
to  p'ant  it  “on  the  worst  soil  in  the 
world” — sour,  half  the  year  under  water, 
sandy — but  it  took  after  drainage,  and 
stayed,  transforming  the  field.  He  began 
to  extend  it  into  pastures,  planting  it 
with  one  and  another  kind  of  clover. 

To-day,  when  you  make  the  round  of 
the  colonies  with  Hugh  MacRae  you  are 
continually  being  stopped  in  the  most  un- 
likely places,  walked  across  fields — he 
wants  to  show  you  “the  finest  pasture  in 
the  South.”  He  wants  to  show  a perfect 
stand  of  seed,  the  seed  of  burr  clover, 
white  clover,  Japanese  clover. 

And  yet  he  is  not  satisfied.  He  is  all 
the  tirne  watching  for  some  new  grass. 
He  has  shown  me  what  grasses  and  clovers 
mean  to  men  and  women  hard  up  against 
a difficult  situation,  what  they  meant  to 
these  Italians,  afraid  of  the  Volstead  Act. 
They  are  now  turning  parts  of  their  farms 
into  as  good  pastures  as  the  world  ever 
saw,  and  the  beauty  of  it  is  that  it  is  ten- 
months-a-year  pasture.  That  is,  such  is 
the  climate  that  it  is  only  necessary  to 
feed  for  two  months,  and  such  is  the  tem- 
perature that  this  does  not  have  to  be  done 
under  cover. 

In  this  episode  you  have  perhaps  the 
most  important  principles  of  permanent 
colonization  after  the  first — healthy  certi- 
fied land.  There  must  be  a continuous 
source  of  sound  counsel,  a source  the  col- 
onist has  learned  to  trust:  somebody  who 
never  fools  or  tricks  him,  somebody  “who 
knows  what  he  is  talking  about,”  who  has 
proved  the  thing  he  says  is  so  and  can 
“show”  you;  somebody  who  foresees  and 
warns  you,  talks  common  sense;  somebody 
who  in  disaster  has  an  immediate  resource. 

All  of  this  Hugh  MacRae  has  been  to 
these  settlers  from  the  start. 

Thus  they  have  grown  in  numbers,  in 
prosperity,  and  in  solidity.  To-day  there 
are  six  settlements  within  thirty  miles  of 
Wilmington.  The  size  of  their  individual 
holdings — usually  ten  acres — makes  the 
members  of  each  group  neighbors.  You 
may  not  be  able  to  “call  across,”  but  you 
can  usually  signal!  The  school,  the 
church,  the  community  house  are  within 
walking  distance. 

“It’s  Dogged  That  Does  It” 

IN  the  growing  season  they  come  to- 
gether almost  daily  at  the  shipping 
points — the  side  tracks  where  the  re- 
frigerator cars  await  them.  As  you  drive 
out  from  Wilmington  late  in  the  day  you 
meet  them  coming  and  going;  trucks, 


Will  Your  Home  Be  Happy  as  Theirs? 


motors,  wagons,  carts,  mule  teams,  horses, 
Americans,  Italians,  S'avs,  Dutch,  Poles — 
even  an  occasional  Chinaman.  Cosmo- 
politan as  you  ever  saw  and  yet  so  in- 
tensely, determinedly  American.  Their 
carry-alls  are  i)iled  high  with  crates  and 
baskets,  much  of  it  graded  produce.  Mere 
they  linger,  their  output  packed  and  re- 
ceipted for  -linger  to  discuss  prices,  the 
reason  of  this  man's  superior  sweet  po- 
tatoes, romaine,  strawberries,  new  experi- 
ments, new  plans.  Proudly  they  discuss 
the  growing  opportunities  and  advantages 
their  labor  and  thrift  are  bringing  them. 

For  people  like  these  the  railroad  can 
afford  special  conveniences,  and  does; 
Wilmington  can  afford  to  take  electricity 
to  them,  and  has  it  on  the  way;  the  State 
can  afford  to  give  them  good  highways, 
and  is  doing  so  (a  section  of  North  Caro- 
lina's magnificent  $50,000,000  project  for 
giving  all  her  people  hard  roads ) . 

The  shipping  point  buzzes  every  night 
with  news  of  these  things,  and  it  stimu- 


lates them  to  undertakings.  Tired  men  go 
home  refreshed.  They  belong  to  a grow- 
ing thing. 

One  of  the  heartening  features  of  the 
development  is  the  powerful  example  the 
colonies  have  been  to  old  settlers.  There 
are  now  splendid  farmers  in  eastern  North 
Carolina,  hut  scattered  among  the  pines 
and  swamps  have  long  lived  families  of 
blacks  and  whites,  some  of  them  scratch- 
ing a meager  existence  from  a soil  which 
they  did  not  fully  appreciate.  They  were 
isolated,  and  sometimes  poorly  nourished 
and  so  set  down  as  shiftless.  But  here 
have  come  people,  dirt  farmers  like  them- 
selves, people  from  across  the  sea,  from 
great  cities,  leaving  high  wages,  the  movies, 
the  street  cars;  and,  where  they  have  been 
keeping  poor,  are  growing  rich.  It  is  hard 
to  keep  shiftless  in  face  of  these  colonists! 
Miraculous  things  are  happening  to  many 
of  them,  transformations.  But  of  course 
this  is  the  joy  and  profit  of  a demonstra- 
tion. It  puts  tools  into  uncertain  hands, 
knowledge  into  unfurnished  heads,  faith 


into  unbelieving  hearts.  This  is  what 
Hugh  MacRae  has  done  down  in  New 
Hanover  and  Pender  Counties,  North 
Carolina. 

Do  not  imagine  it  has  been  as  easy  as  it 
may  sound  as  1 tell  it.  It  is  thirty  years 
since  the  idea  was  horn — born  of  Mac- 
Rae's  great  love  for  his  native  Slate  and 
a great  desire  to  do  his  part  in  the  world 
towa-d  making  more  people  happy,  secure, 
useful. 

“It's  dogged  that  does  it,”  and  Hugh 
MacRae's  dogged  and  intelligent  per- 
sistency has  put  colonization  in  these 
States  on  a scientific  basis.  If  those  who 
would  open  land — the  Federal  Government, 
the  State,  the  individual — will  follow  his 
principles  and  practices,  there  will  come 
a time  when  the  landsick  steel  worker, 
the  successful  but  disappointed  woman  and 
the  disabled  veteran  need  not  fear  to 
follow  their  bent. 

It's  a far-reaching  thing  this  man,  so 
faithful  to  his  dreams  and  his  follies,  has 
given  us. 


The  City  in  the  Country 

NOTE — Under  this  caption  Collier’s  leading  editorial  of  the  issue  of  July  15,  1922,  referred  to  a new  enter- 
prise of  senii-puhlic  nature,  now  being  organised.  The  editorial  follows. 


IT  is  not  strange  that  observant  youth,  looking  on 
the  costs  of  taming  the  land,  should  shirk  the 
task  and  seek  labor  less  toilsome,  more  social, 
more  quickly  responsive.  Nor  does  it  well  become 
those  of  us  who  have  before  them  run  away  from 
the  land  to  urge  them  back  to  it.  But  their  deser- 
tion and  ours  is  weakening  the  taproot  of  the  nation. 

We  all  need  to  know  about  demonstrations  like 
the  one  described  by  Aliss  Tarbell  in  this  issue. 
The  principle  is  not  limited  in  its  application  to  dirt 
farmers  and  ten  acres.  Indeed,  there  is  a larger 
and  even  more  important  MacRae  project  now  form- 
ing. It  is  to  be  known  as  the  Farm  City.  Two  or 
three  hundred  farms  of  twenty  acres  each  will  be 
laid  out  on  a tract  in  eastern  North  Carolina.  These 
farms  will  lie  sold  to  selected  jteople — country- 
minded  men  and  women  of  some  money  and  culti- 
vation, who  are  weary  of  office  or  the  schoolroom, 
anxious  for  an  independent  farm  home,  but  not  will- 
ing to  cut  themselves  off  from  the  society  of  their 
kind.  They  are  jteople  who  want  not  only  certified 
land,  but  certified  neighbors. 

Adjoining  these  farms  it  is  jtroposed  that  there 
be  creameries,  canneries,  machine  repair  shops, 
basket  and  crate-making  factories,  pine  distilleries 
(you  can  get  enough  resin  from  the  pine  stum|)s  on 
the  land  you  clear  to  pay  for  ujtrooting  the  stumjtsl), 
storage  houses,  grading  houses  for  vegetables  and 
fruits,  d'his  Farm  City  will  be  etptijtited  to  take 
care  of  what  it  grows  and  to  supply  many  of  its 
own  essential  wants. 

d'here  will  also  be  a training  farm  ; an  agricultural 
station  for  local  co-operative  experiments:  a com- 
munity center  with  a pleasant  inn,  sh()|)s,  a library, 
schools.  ])lace.s  of  amusement. 


The  plan  is  to  be  financed  and  managed  from 
the  start  for  the  benefit  of  the  settlers.  The  profit 
of  those  who  provide  the  initial  capital  will  be 
strictly  limited,  and  democratic  principles  of  man- 
agement will  be  applied  as  rapidly  as  the  settlement 
gets  on  its  feet. 

The  Farm  City  will  be  developed  with  the  knowl- 
edge and  experience  of  the  best  men  we  have : 
Dr.  F.  H.  Newell,  the  former  chief  of  the  United 
States  Reclamation  Service:  John  Nolen,  the  leader 
of  the  movement  for  city  and  rural  planning; 
Thomas  Adams,  the  adviser  of  the  Dominion  of 
Canada  in  its  town  planning:  Dr.  j.  A.  Bonsteel, 
the  soil  expert. 

From  such  a ])lan  may  grow  a city  that  will  ful- 
fill the  vision  of  Samuel  Rauck,  the  farseeing 
librarian  of  Grand  Rapids; 

The  ideal  city  of  the  future  will  he  the  city  where 
every  man  will  l)e  willing  to  have  every  other  man  in 
the  city  as  his  next-door  neighhor — willing  because 
every  other  man  will  he  worthy — worthy  in  intelligence, 
in  healthfidness,  in  cleanliness,  and  in  character. 

Too  many  of  tis  are  occtipied  in  making  things 
that  among  a jteople  more  discriminating,  keener 
for  qtiality,  wotild  never  be  made.  Millions  more 
are  caught  in  otir  foolishly  intricate  system  of  dis- 
tribtition  and  trading,  and  in  the  often  demoralizing 
web  of  sjteculation. 

lutr  the  man,  woman,  yotith,  or  girl  who  feels 
this,  and  sighs  for  self-reliant,  indeitendeiit  living, 
for  making  a job  instead  of  taking  one,  producing 
instead  of  maniittilaling  production — colonies  and 
farm  cities  built  on  the  MacRae  plan  ofier  a new 
world  of  opporttinity. 


Detailed  information  about  the  Farm  City  projeet  will  he  sent  upon  rec/uest  to 

The  barm  Cities  Corporation  ot  Aineriea 


244  Madison  Avenue,  Nt'w  York  (lily 


